10.22.23 1 John 2:28-3:10
Discuss: What do you think is the right balance between a healthy awareness of events in the world around you and an unhealthy “dose” of events? Does this balance change from person to person and at different times in our lives? What evidence is there of a healthy versus an unhealthy balance? What general principles could you articulate versus just opinions that differ from person to person?
Explain: The New Testament letters are called “occasional documents,” meaning they were written to deal with specific events that were happening in the church and wider culture.
Q1: Why do you think these letters have so little information about the details of the events that they address? (We often have answers to questions/issues but lack clarity on what the questions/issues were that the writer is addressing).
Explain: John was probably addressing an early form of Gnosticism (it doesn’t matter what this is, don’t get sidetracked). It was a heretical form of Christianity that said the body doesn’t matter, so sin is either not real or doesn’t matter.
Q2: With this background in mind, scan back over the first two chapters of 1 John, and how do you see him addressing this heresy? (For instance, look at how he zeros in on “hearing, seeing, touching” Christ. He came in physical form).
Q3: Where do you see these same ideas in the culture right now? It doesn’t matter what I do with my body. Sin isn’t a real thing. Sin doesn’t really matter to God. Sin doesn’t really impact my life now or in eternity.
Q4: How does John focus us on the future return of Christ and the first advent of Christ in order to address our need for personal holiness?
Q5: How have you looked around and looked into your own heart recently and seen your own “eye”? What happens when you see yourself and not God and others?
Q6. When you read or hear, “See what great love the Father has given us that we should be called God’s children!” Do you “feel” anything? (We are not chasing feelings, but sometimes a lack of feeling diagnoses an underlying problem.)
Q7: What might a lack of being “touched” by God’s great love for us reveal in our lives?
(It may be you are just tired right now, but I’m talking about a persistent inability to feel grateful and amazing at God’s love).
Q8: How can we meditate on Scripture and what he has done in the world and our lives to increase our gratitude and worship?
Q9: John writes that “sin is lawlessness.” What does this mean? How is this different than how the non-Christian world views sin?
Q10: How do you make sense out of “nice” non-Christians? Do they really need Jesus?
Q11: What does Jeremiah 17:19 tell us about what is happening in the hearts of people (even “nice” ones)?
“The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick, who can understand it?”
Q12: How does increased clarity in the three tests (truth, obedience, love) bring increased confidence in the gospel?
Q13: How do we hold in proper balance the reality that we all sin, sin is incompatible with Christ, and Christ is our advocate when we sin?